General Discussion

General DiscussionHow to balance PL

How to balance PL in General Discussion
❤ Ashley ❤

    1. Spirit lance does not slow anymore and illusion cannot attack for 1 second after spawning.
    2. Dopple Walk does not give movement speed.
    3. Max illusions down to 4 and illusions take 400% more damage.
    4. Phantom Edge gives no magic resistance and is an activatable spell that costs 100/150/200 mana and lasts 16/20/24 seconds with a 80/70/60 sec cooldown time.

    BALANCED.

    Pandamonium(You Died)

      How to balance drow:
      1. Frozen arrows slow 1/2/3/4%, deals additional 10 dmg
      2. Single-targeted silence
      3. Aura is an active spell, with 50/60/70 mana and lasts 16/20/24/28 seconds with a cooldown of 30.
      4. Aura detection range increased to 450

      BALANCED.
      not like it was unbalanced before lul

      Relentless

        Apparently "balance" = "make irrelevant"

        My suggestion for balancing PL in an interesting way that keeps what the hero is and does:

        give gold and xp for killing illusions, doesnt have to be much, like brood spiders or treants

        Force PL to protect his images if he doesnt want to feed the enemy. The only thing really imba about him is the ability to image push at no risk.

        ❤ Ashley ❤

          - The Terrible

          you made me lose by going 1-9 undying, please dont attempt a balance

          ReGuardz

            - Max illusions reduced 2/4/6/8 to 2/3/4/5
            - Illusions die when they away from the hero minimum 2000 range

            Human

              am i the only one who doesnt think pl is op

              Pandamonium(You Died)

                Rape, that was sarcasm, silly boy. And yes, PL is not op, he is not even top 3 winrate in pubs. If he were, hed be like centaur after just being released, #1.

                Relentless

                  ReGuardz idea might work, not sure if 2000 range is the right number, maybe 1200 would be better. He has to be close enough to be in danger for it to have meaning beyond just preventing multi-lane push.

                  PL is imba because he can do carry dmg at no risk. Pubs not playing him correctly means nothing. Meepo and Brood are very strong, but to hard for pubs to use. Even Antimage sucks at pub games on average.

                  But if you know how to image push PL is so easy to play its not fun. I look at my 9+ KDA and 75% win on PL and recognize that its not my best carry, and my best carries in terms of my actual experience and skill can't compare at all...PL is just way to easy to play. There is no other carry in the game that can rape your whole team without even being there and only mid-game items.

                  Late game PL can back door your rax solo...while he is actually jungling and risking nothing. Anyway, there has to be a risk or a cost to using image push. The problem is not that its powerful, all heros have something powerful. The problem is that its free.

                  Josh  :D

                    Kids, kids, kids. PL is fine. He's a hard carry. That means that you have to shut him down. Shut him down and/or counter him (tiny, centaur, death prophet, lina, lion, and more) and he's never a problem.

                    AM can also rape your team.

                    And PA.

                    Both are also excellent PL counters.

                    shuki

                      Both antimage and phantom assassin get raped by PL. I would also add, ironically, they are both more item dependent than pl. PL can do work with just a diffusal. Whereas mostly am/pa will rush battlefury, and then need another item or two on top of that to do anything.

                      People think heroes with cleave of can kill illusions counter pl, but they really don't. Tiny with ags and craggy might be decent but I haven't seen it. You can't really counter phantom lancer, if you thinking winning in 20 is a counter to pl, you're kind of retarded. With any kind of antipush it's pretty hard to breech the base that early. Winning early just forces you into all in chen aura stack picks, which either win early or fail miserably. Its not a very safe way to win, that's why you don't see it a lot.

                      Safe way to win? Pick Pl and turtle. If it wasn't good people wouldn't pick it.

                      cartographer

                        Don't let PL farm. If you do, it's your fault, and you deserve to lose.

                        Weeb

                          i usually go tiny, or mag + sven, or mag + void, Slardar in pubs, he is not that bad, but not as gd in carrying as the others, though sven not that much a carry too, antimage can be gd with mag, but his mana is going to be destroyed easily

                          Henry

                            the only thing that makes pl strong is the chance to creat 10 illus in 1 sec ... if it gets fixed with a little cooldown of creating illusions like the cooldown on basher the hero would be perfectly balanced

                            Ming (Zufälliger König)

                              thanks to pl, i ramapage'd with es. nerf es pl0x

                              Josh  :D

                                @Shuki, bullshit. PA and AM can both out farm PL. Getting the second BF is a breeze after the first. Not to mention, if PA blinks on PL then dusts, she can kill the real one easy. If you're too dumb to buy dust, you deserve to lose to PL. AM can do the same thing.

                                Sven and Mag are also good choices. Sven absolutely rapes that kid between the cleave and the stun.

                                Pandamonium(You Died)

                                  Gyrocopter can dominate mid game more easily, farmed gyro> PL in most cases.

                                  ❤ Ashley ❤

                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

                                    http://dotabuff.com/matches/120305576

                                    Weeb

                                      Antimage is countered heavily by PL, maybe antimage outfarms PL, but PL just rapes him, if u

                                      ever watched LGD.cn vs DK, Burning was on PL, and Zhou was on antimage, antimage was ahed by

                                      maybe 10k gold as a networth, 27k to 17k gold, and outlvled too, then both teams engaged, PL

                                      and antimage were left with the other heroes dead or low hp, PL burned Antimage's mana, both

                                      were low hp, antimage was killed, if he ran away instead of fighting, PL could just purge

                                      him(diffusal), or just slow him by his spirit lance, and he would die as he had no mana, and

                                      the illusions didnt allow him to regenerate that much to make him be able to blink..

                                      antimage had no idea which of the PLs is the real one, he was hitting randomly, and the

                                      illusions were tanky, as PL had heart + butterfly..

                                      at the end of the game PL outfarmed Antimage, not bcus PL does this, its bcus its Burning !!

                                      but however, SD was on the side antimage (LGD.cn) and he continuously disrupted any of the

                                      PL's army, and the illusions resulting from disruption once ended up in getting a double

                                      kill for SD. even the caster (LD) was out of his mind, saying "PL is dead, but his illusions

                                      r still there" and suddenly they started killing PL's allies, and then the caster got it..

                                      Chinese games r tensive !!

                                      TL;DR
                                      PL does counter Antimage, and i am an antimage whore, and i know it

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                                      CooLGuY

                                        Kunkka can counter PL and items like dust and gem can do the trick to kill him.

                                        Icon

                                          Phantom lancer does not need a nerf, he is just a pub stomp hero because most all pick teams, especially in normal tier lack the co-ordination and just let him farm until he becomes ridiculous.

                                          TurquoiseTail

                                            He isn't just a pub stomp hero, he is top-tier atm and is pick/banned so much nowadays simply because he is so good as a carry, pusher and even in lane he is very powerful in comparison to other hard carries like Void.

                                            Human

                                              try void maybe

                                              Josh  :D

                                                @map, I something about that match doesn't add up. AM with BF or two should CHEW through a PL. Butterfly and heart are expensive items, AM with two BFS or maybe a BF and an MKB should shut him down pretty hard. That said, a PL with a heart and butterfly = other team is pretty fucked.

                                                @Really? Dust and gem only get so far. Kunkas passive is what really does our friend PL in. Anyone with passive cleave is going to be able to shut him down early so he doesn't end up with a butterfly and a heart.

                                                @icon, that's exactly it. To get fat, PL needs at least one babysitter. Stick disruptor and Axe in a lane with him (or qop for that matter, the list goes on) and PL will never get enough farm to be relevant. That said, if they do have a PL, if he knows what he's doing he'll EVENTUALLY get enough farm. For that reason you shouldn't let the match go too long. If it's past 40 minutes and you don't have a significant tower advantage and some team coordination, he can turn it around. At full build or close two it I took the enemy rax, all three, in about 1:15. He doesn't need long to cause a lot of trouble, but that's a hard carry for you. Don't let them get farmed or they'll rape your team.

                                                @Turquoise, absolutely. Picked or banned (nearly) every match because he's a complete asshole. That doesn't mean he isn't balanced. Wanna have a lot of fun? Stick DS in a lane with him and keep popping the ion shell on the enemy ranged creep. Have fun PL! Try getting your farm in now. Then gank him a few times early (first 15 minutes) and he'll have a VERY difficult time catching up. Did we mention silencer yet? Stick silencer in a lane with him and drop some of those over time bullshit spells. Early those really hurt, especially because he won't have the mana to hit his "oh shit" button. No dust or gem required, he just can't go invis.

                                                cupcakebruh

                                                  Pick a heavy push line up with shit like LD and Leshrac, with a mid hero that 100% butt fucks PL every day of the week (Puck/QoP/BM), and send someone like Lone Druid to your safelane. Take every tower on the map. Rax, end game.

                                                  Or just pick Gyro/Sven and start pushing heavily 20 minutes in. PL is an incredibly weak hero when it comes to defending, because he doesn't have an illusions army, and can't create one. And at this point in the game, he can't even enter the fight.

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                                                  [i.P] - Jedy

                                                    Pick ES = gg

                                                    Video Game Enjoyer

                                                      PL isn't op he's just like every other carry
                                                      If he gets farm he is powerful

                                                      Easy solution

                                                      Don't let him farm

                                                      Relentless

                                                        tj you are mistaken. PL is not like other carries because he can do tremendous dmg in a teamfight at no risk. All other carries are limited to bkb duration and even during bkb they are countered by plenty of ults that go through bkb.

                                                        But PL can kill your entire team using illusions while he is so far away even Ravage and Rain of Chaos, the biggest aoe skills in the game, would not hit him. Because of this he does not need a bkb meaning he gets an additional advantage over all other carries since he can get his dmg items sooner.

                                                        While other carries can be difficult to deal with late game there are ways...ghost and fstaff to kite during bkb, then hex or other disables are applied. Its hard, but possible. With PL there is no solution late game. PL can produce more illusions from his illusions or from nothing on an extremely low cd and even one PL illusion can easy produce more illusions and real late game carry dps...all while PL is in a totally safe position.

                                                        As for earthshaker...I love to play against ES. I can't even count how many times I have loled as ES blinked in and ulted my image push over 30 seconds after I have moved on. There is no reason for PL to ever be at risk. No reason to ever be in a position that can actually be attacked. But since so many bad PL players exist all you have to do is micro one of the illusions to last hit one or two creeps and the images will draw ganks. So many dusts and stuns and time wasted on nothing...lol.

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                                                        cupcakebruh

                                                          ^no weakness? Right, because Sven doesn't fuck him up at every point in the game, because Gyro doesn't shit all over him mid game. Most melee carries with either EMP/battlefury can deal with him quite well in even scenarios

                                                          And his biggest issue is facing heavy pushing lineups, even with full items he cannot do anything if they have pushed inside your base, because he doesn't have the ability to create the illusion army that he needs to actually be relevant. But when you are mowing down towers around the map with heroes like LD/Leshrac, you cut his farming space by a significant amount.

                                                          Also heroes like Puck (mid) give him a ton of problems throughout the early-mid stages of the game.

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                                                          Relentless

                                                            ^^^ absolute bullshit

                                                            Keep thinking that only games where you are way way ahead against feeders are relevant and that every game you didnt pwn everything with ease is the fault of matchmaking...

                                                            Gryo and Sven have the same problem as any other carry...bkb duration. There is no reason to fight them during that time, you are just used to facing idiots who do. All that is needed is to wait a few seconds and then the disable is applied and your dps with a 6 item sven is ZERO. That is real dota, where ppl dont suck. But this can't be done to PL even by pros since he does not have to even be there.

                                                            Gryo Flack cannon for 6 attacks...less than 3 seconds. All you have to do is stagger your images slightly not sending in all at once. 2 or 3 PL images are a teamkilling threat. They will have to be dealt with...if gyro uses flack he is now extremely weak for 20 seconds. You are thinking of a situation where your team is way ahead against bad players and can just rush in and kill towers while everyone sits there wringing there hands, whining about nub team, refusing to play their role, and lets you take a tower...this is not real dota.

                                                            Any late game carry can and should be paired with powerful counter push, ie Kotl, DS, Invoker, Jakiro the difference with PL is the lack of vulnerability. The carrys pros love to pick share this trait, they are very hard to kill. LD - pros farm with bear while hiding. Antimage, always ready to blink away. Morphling, has morph up ready to instantly port back. Weaver - extremely strong escape skills...and so forth. Heros that don't have it will only push out with back up close and ward vision of the enemy. PL however can push 2 lanes alone...while not being there, can take your tower and rax...while not being there.

                                                            PL image push is so strong I recently saw a pro game where shadow demon illusions of the enemy PL pushed a mid lane of super creeps from radient base all the way to the dire and counter raxed, in about 60 seconds while the siege was held at top lane. Really SD is the best counter to PL because the images are truly Imbalanced. Nevertheless, even with this the PL still won. Once SD went down the game was over.

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                                                            Baby Carrot

                                                              how if icefrogg x allow PL buys diffusal? is tht ok?

                                                              Relentless

                                                                Someone mentioned laning against ion shell spam, a smart choice -- this can work now since tranquil was nerfed...previously (ie 2 weeks ago) against soul-tranquil build ion shell spam did not stop a pro PL from farming solo. But even now all it really does is force PL to be supported better so DS can't do it to him.

                                                                Like all late-game carries, PL is weak in the lane early. But like all late game carries he should be supported while he farms up. The difference is what PL can do with late game items compared to what all other carries can do with the same farm. Other carries have to take a risk to do their dmg, PL does not.

                                                                Naga Siren with Manta can be a little like a PL. But its much easier to stop because her cd are so much higher. PL can send new images 4 times per creep wave. And with proper micro, they can continually push or farm the jungle forever while naga images like all others in the game have limits.

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                                                                Ming (Zufälliger König)

                                                                  fking wall of texts

                                                                  Relentless

                                                                    Bah I delete over half of what I write. This is nothing.

                                                                    Oh also...mapz example is very good. Josh mentions that AM with 2 bfury etc..."should" chew through PLs in theory crafting. But in fact it does not work for cleave heros to counter PL because they take tons of dmg doing it, get no lifesteal from it, and probably have not actually hit the real PL at all if PL micros correctly. As in Mapz example even the carry for IG the #1 team in the world, could not figure out which PL to hit.

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                                                                    Josh  :D

                                                                      C'mon kid, get real.

                                                                      Sven drops his 2 second storm hammer that does 425 damage and his cleave takes out the illusions faster than PL can proc them.

                                                                      AM cracks his manta and chews on PL, done.

                                                                      A fed to shit PA can rape a fed to shit PL.

                                                                      Kids these days.

                                                                      Ming (Zufälliger König)

                                                                        ^
                                                                        say taht again after pa mana goes to 0 after being chewed by pl

                                                                        Josh  :D

                                                                          PA doesn't need mana for her passive ult or for the BF to work. Blinking is a bonus.

                                                                          cupcakebruh

                                                                            @Relentless, so you haven't seen the game where PL got complete free farm but couldn't even enter the fight because Gyro went straight BKB + Rapier, http://dotabuff.com/matches/140937120

                                                                            PL doesn't fucking have an illusion army when defending, what is so hard to understand about this, he isn't able to attack anyone to create any illusions, and when he lances a creep when the wave is pushed, its destroyed immediately.

                                                                            And that's why BKB doesn't mean shit, and its why PL is one of the worst carries to have when it comes to defending. Sure, if you are pushing you are a bit of a god, because you can always hit the jungle (if you don't have an army from pushing the wave) and just send illusions in, over and over, but you just can't do that while you are in the base waiting for the enemies to push into the base.

                                                                            Assuming you aren't a noob, you use Flak cannon very early on, so when you push into the base, you are able to have flak cannon up again very quickly, and 6 attacks with 800 range is plenty of damage, especially when paired with cool down + allied AoE shit.

                                                                            But lets see, you have no idea how PL defends and creates some magical army (which will get wrecked in 2 seconds even if he has manta + WW), and you think that Gyro becomes useless for 20 seconds as opposed to ~5-7 (depending on your timing), maybe educate yourself about the game before talking about balance.

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                                                                            Vape-babulya, Ebalo pitbulya

                                                                              Yeah just like the morph was "BALANCED" and now virtually unplayable.

                                                                              ScRaPyCoCoX

                                                                                4.2 ---> 2.8
                                                                                illusion deals 25% to 12%
                                                                                cuz sometimes 3-4 illu is enough to kill your supports.

                                                                                Adumbration

                                                                                  Pl is strong but he is far from op and i don't want him to become another morph, pl is good because he can farm and fight same as naix but I don't hear people cry how naix is op.There are so many ways to counter pl that it is ridiculous too call him op.

                                                                                  cupcakebruh

                                                                                    Just waiting for people to start crying about Lone Druid. I mean come on, the last 5 games on the G1-League has been all about Lone Druid, and yeah he was on the winning team in all 5 of those games.

                                                                                    A hero that can solo any lane, or head to the jungle and do extremely well, hard to shut down because you need to get past his fat + fast as fuck gay ass entangling spirit only to reach an even fatter Lone Druid with like 15 armor and a shitton of HP without any items, and pushes down towers like a boss.

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                                                                                    Lavine

                                                                                      I lolled at the kid that stated earthshaker was a good counter hero to pl (and the kids saying AM, PA are good counter heroes as well). If you have had succes with earthshaker countering pl, then u can be 100% sure that its because the PL player doesnt know how to play PL properly. You don't even have to participate in the team fight when playing pl. You can farm jungle like a fucking boss, while u send your hoarde of illusions in. (1 illusion can become stronger than 1 support hero if u know how to farm and play) Imagine 20 illusions that u put in at no risk.

                                                                                      If you have lost 3 sets of racks, its no problem for PL to win the game, he can push 2 sets of racks easily while he is farming jungle, and then u watch all from the opponent team that uses all their ulties to get PL shut down, es ulti, ravage etc. all insane spells that doesnt hurt PL, and then your 4 allies can just wait till they have popped everything.

                                                                                      I also love the ppl stating that "like all other hard carries he must be shut down early on" in competitive games they do that all the times, but the support heroes will just give PL free teleports and he will tele back and forth between the 3 towers to constantly have free farm. I remember at one point where Na'vi shut PL down COMPLETELY, like - he had zero farm the first 15 minutes and ganked him plenty of times. So PL kept teleporting back and forth from top to bottom to have free farm, and they couldnt do shit about it, and eventually the game got to the point where PL reached level 16 and then it was gg for Na'Vi. They couldnt do shit about it.

                                                                                      PL is the only hero where you say: "We must end this game early" if you go up against void, if you go up against pa, if you go up against am its not like u have to end the game early if u have a hard carry yourself, BUT if you go up against PL your only chance of winning (if the PL player is somewhat decent and not on shitty pub level) is if you can end the game early.

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                                                                                      pos 4/5

                                                                                        just let them escape from spirit lance with invis/dagger/blink.

                                                                                        Weeb

                                                                                          wowowowow
                                                                                          TL;DR

                                                                                          Ples Mercy

                                                                                            if you want a counter for PL just pick sven, es, faceless or kunkka.

                                                                                            If your a fed sven, pl has no chance, its just rightclick 4 win.

                                                                                            Acid Snow

                                                                                              I wonder if we should reevaluate "illusions" not giving any XP/Gold... They're basically a unit that deals damage and soaks it up, so there should be some reward to destroying them; it doesn't have to be a lot!

                                                                                              cupcakebruh

                                                                                                @toefflnub, right, because PL is always pushing? What about when it comes to defending? How does PL stay out of the fight? He has no units to attack to generate an army, and when the wave is pushed into the base, he can't get close to the fight. Did you think about that one? I guess its ok then that he can't do shit 20 minutes into the game while Lone Druid is taking a dump on your tower.

                                                                                                And no, PL isn't an autowin hero come lategame, seriously if you think that, you must be an incredibly bad player. And after checking out your stats, I guess I was right. No wonder you think AM can't do shit when you have played 43 games with him and have a 350GPM and 37% win rate. 10/10, get some skill scrub.

                                                                                                And what can PL do when there is a Panda (dagger) or NS walking around the map 12-15 minutes in? He can't do shit.

                                                                                                Seriously guys, if you are absolutely shit at the game like this guy, don't try and talk about balance.

                                                                                                Lavine

                                                                                                  @You - There is plenty u can do, ure example is outrageous because ure talking about an imbalanced game where the team PL is facing is leading with like 30 kills and 6 towers. Pl can do a lot, he can either counter push (which works most of the time) or he can simply engage in the team fight in which he does not initiate (so he is looking solid) pop invis - 1 illusion - pop spirit lance - 3 illusions - now pop manta and u got 5 illusions, thats 5 easy illusions enough to start a team battle and create another large hoarde of illusions.

                                                                                                  I love the fact that ure taking my AM into consideration, it just makes u look even more pathetic with ur 80 games failed smurf account.

                                                                                                  And i wanna bet my entire bank roll that i have watched more competitive games than you have through the 10 years in which i have played Dota than u will ever experience in ur dota "career" have fun, master troll.

                                                                                                  cupcakebruh

                                                                                                    So it's outrageous for a team to be pushing into the enemy base? But it's fine to assume that PL has the lead an is pushing into your base? Here's an idea, try pushing against heroes like PL and see what happens.

                                                                                                    Is PL counter pushing when you are going for rax? How low level are your games exactly?

                                                                                                    And no he can't engage teamfights 20-25 minutes without an illusion army of at least 5-6 illusions already up so they can keep generating more and more. If you try and go with lance + juxtapose your enemy will kill them instantly and then what?

                                                                                                    You say you have 10 years of Dota experience, have over 1000 games of dota2, and still cant manage a 50% win rate, and can't play any hero to at a half decent level? You fucking feed in most of your games you shitbad noob.

                                                                                                    This is my only account other than (http://dotabuff.com/players/123496794) which I made because I got put in LPQ for afk during a bot game.

                                                                                                    You don't know how shit about this game, heck you can't even do well in your shit tier level pubs.